Hello friends!
I write this update in the middle of what may end up being one of the most hectic weeks of the whole year here in the Village. We currently have 26 volunteers staying in the Village from 7 different countries – Spain, Italy, Kenya, Nigeria, the U.K., the U.S., and Poland. Yesterday, 7 new volunteers arrived from Poland, 10 more from their group arrive tonight, and a couple stragglers come in on Thursday. It’s nuts here.
The projects that are being done by these volunteers, however, are pretty awesome. Right now all of the students are on their August vacation which goes from the 12th until around the 29th, which means that there are non-stop activities for the children. In the mornings they are busy working around their homes and shambas (farms), and in the afternoons are arts and crafts, sports, and movies. All of this means that the volunteers play a huge role in creating activities for the children to take part in during their vacation, and as Volunteer Coordinator, it means that my days are nice and hectic!
Sidebar – I have to share that I just had to take a break from writing this in order to catch a large lizard that was running around my office. All in a day’s work. Picture attached below.
But back to the projects.
There is a group from Italy who are involved in a few different projects. The youngest of them (about my age), Mario, is leading the planning for the Nyumbani Olympics, which are happening tomorrow morning. There will be small tournaments for all of the children in football (soccer), basketball, volleyball, and track. There will also be a power-walking race for the shushes and umaus (grandmothers and grandfathers), which I’ve heard is always quite the spectacle.
Two of the other Italians, Fabio and Michele, are engineers who have been designing the high-efficiency stoves that have been constructed by the 4 students from Spain over the last 6 weeks. Today they are installing the metal grates, which are the crux of the firewood-saving efficient design. To celebrate the official inauguration of these new stoves, this afternoon we are going to have the Master Chef Nyumbani competition. Every household will cook a small meal using their new stoves, and several groups of volunteers will go to different housing clusters to rate the meal (all the volunteers ate small lunches today in anticipation of tasting some 20-25 different dishes this evening). The overall top three houses will get a prize; a rooster and a hen (both alive…for now) for third place, a 3,000ksh (~$30) gift card to the small store located in the Village for second place, and, for the grand prize winners, an entire goat!
The final group from Italy is heading up what is probably one of the most glamorous projects ever to be held at Nyumbani. The project leader is Bali Lawal, a former Italian supermodel who grew up in Italy, but is Nigerian-Sudanese by birth. She is being assisted by a Spanish designer who lives in the UK, and a Kenyan beadworker and designer who lives in Nairobi. Over the past 10 days, they have been working with the girls in the tailoring/sewing class of the Nyumbani Youth Polytechnic school in order to produce a line of clothes that take traditional Kenyan fabrics and styles, and incorporates them into high-end fashion. Tomorrow afternoon after the Olympics we are putting on a Fashion Show, where the girls will model the clothes they have made on the “catwalk”, aka the overgrown amphitheater that is behind the Social Hall. One of the coolest parts of their project is that following her time at Nyumbani, Bali is going to take the clothes back to Italy, where they will be featured in an exhibition during Milan Fashion Week. Be on the lookout for the Nyumbani Collection, due out soon in a store near you.
We said a sad goodbye this morning to an incredible couple from the U.S. who were here for only 2 short weeks. Chris spent just about every waking moment trying to learn and record how Nyumbani functions as an entire cohesive system. Gina spent time working with the children to create some truly amazing artwork using fabric and natural “found objects” such as sticks and seed pods. Both had been professional actors for 20+ years and had incredible artistic talent and drive. I was blown away by the work that both of them did in such a short amount of time. They are incredible people who I look forward to seeing the next time I am back in the States!
Life in the Village has been crazy recently, but I am incredibly grateful to have had the chance to meet some of these incredible, kind, motivated people. Something I look forward to every day is the time spent after work, talking with the other volunteers about our days or our lives, and learning a bit about the humbling mosaic of lives and perspectives that are so integral to life in the Village. It’s hard to believe how many people I’ve had a chance to meet in only my first 4 weeks, but it makes me incredibly excited about the year.
Maybe once a week or so, we go to the local town of Kwa Vonza for dinner and drinks at a small restaurant. Just eating in the restaurant is an experience in and of itself. In order to use the bathroom, you have to go through a dark, unlit alley, being careful not to stumble over the tied-up goat that will presumably be on your plate in an hour or so. Once you reach the bathroom, you can be entertained by the man in the “Wholesale Wine & Spirits” shop on the other side of the alleyway singing along to Miley Cyrus’ “We Can’t Stop”. There’s nothing quite like it.
Transportation to and from Kwa Vonza, however, is one of my favorite things about living here. The easiest (and cheapest) means of transportation is a 20-minute ride via motorcycle (called a boda boda) back and forth from Nyumbani to Kwa Vonza. On my first ride back during my first week, about halfway through the ride I looked up and could see the most incredible night sky I have ever seen. Light pollution is near-zero here, and wow does it make a difference. Some of you may have watched the Perseid meteor shower last week; we were all so excited because it was supposed to be 5 times stronger than in normal years and was expected to be really incredible to see. If you saw it, email me about it, because it was just about the only night we’ve had for a month that has been 100% overcast.
Life in the Village is not all fun and games and starry skies. This being rural Kenya, there are a lot of things that I am having to get used to, as well as things that affect the Village as a whole. It is incredible how frequently we use sinks or running water in general in the States, something that I don’t think is possible to fully appreciate until you experience it. This past weekend, there wasn’t any water at all for a vast majority of the people who live in the Village. There were only a handful of pumps that were functioning due to a shift in the water table, and those who didn’t have water simply had to wait and hope that it returned, which it fortunately did. Even when the water tables themselves are stable, there are other issues that can lead to water shortages. In order for water to reach the houses from the shallow wells located along the nearby riverbed, the solar powered water pumps need to be well charged. The result? After a cloudy day (of which there have been unusually many during the past 2 weeks), you can expect for there to be considerably less water for bathing, washing clothes, etc. Fortunately drinking water comes from the collected rainwater, of which there is still enough. It definitely gives a little note of warning for the last few weeks of September, when water supply dips even lower before the October rains come.
Another change that has required a bit of a mental shift has been making sure that I watch where I step. In addition to the fact that just about every single plant here comes equipped with thorns that would make most rosebushes look like silk blankets, there is another fun little thing to look out for: snakes. There’s a lot of them in the Village. In addition to the 4.3-meter (14+ foot) African rock python that killed a dog in the Village a few months ago, 2 puff adders have also been found (and subsequently killed) in the past month. This includes one that was found on the front steps of the Guest House where I live. If you’re not sure what a puff adder is, just Google “deadliest snake in Africa” and you’ll be all set. I’m normally someone who thinks snakes are super cool, but when you’re about 3 hours from a good hospital, your outlook changes.
Finally, this past weekend I went on my first adventure of the year to Lake Naivasha and Hell’s Gate National Park! I travelled with the group from Comillas University in Madrid: Arturo, Paloma, María, and Fátima, with whom I’ve become close friends. We travelled also with Angie, a Nyumbani social worker also from Spain, and two of her friends. An unexpected side effect of these last few weeks is that I have spoken more Spanish in my time here than I have in the last 4 years. It has been great to practice my ailing Spanish, along with trying to remember the fragmented Kiswahili that I learned in Tanzania. Hell’s Gate National Park was a beautiful trip; what makes the park unique is that because of the lack of predators in the park, you have the option of walking along the roads or renting bikes to travel through the park. We rented bikes, and saw herds of zebra, impala, Thompson’s and Grant’s gazelles, waterbucks, Cape buffalo, giraffes, warthogs, all framed by gorgeous red cliffs. There was also a deep volcanic gorge that could be explored on foot. We rented a house for ourselves in a campsite on the bank of Lake Naivasha, where we could watch hippos grazing at night just 100 feet from where we were eating dinner. It was a perfect weekend trip to prepare for the chaos of this week! I’ve included some photos below of some of the things we were lucky enough to see.
As always, let me know if you have any questions about my life here in Kenya!
Lots o’ love,
Shan
